Buffer Zone – The area around a facility where only hand digging is allowed. The buffer zone is 18 inches for marked, unexposed facilities and 12 inches or twice the known limit of control of the cutting edge, whichever is greater, for exposed facilities.

Business Day – A day other than Saturday, Sunday and legal holidays.

Excavator – A person or company that will engage in earth-moving activities.

Facility – Any resource, either underground or above the ground, which transmits a product, such as natural gas, electricity or telephone communications.

Member – An owner of underground facilities that belongs to Diggers Hotline. The member service boundary indicates which areas the owner will be notified of dig sites.

TDD – Telecommunication Device for the Deaf. A telephone number for the hearing impaired.

Working Day – See Business Day.

Valid Ticket – A ticket for which work begins within 10 calendar days after the legal start date AND work is not interrupted for more than 10 calendar days.

Invalid Ticket – A ticket for which work has not started within 10 calendar days after the legal start date or work has been interrupted for more than 10 calendar days.

Standard Locate – A locate request for new excavation The legal start date and time is three business days after the locate request is called in.

Emergency Locate – A locate request, where excavation or demolition must begin prior to the standard three business days. An emergency locate exists only when one or more of the following exist: a) The unforeseen excavation, which, if not performed, could result in the loss of life or limb. b) The excavation is required to repair a service outage. c) Excavation is required prior to three business days in order to prevent property damage. d) An unstable condition exists which may result in any of the conditions listed above (for example, a leak in any service or main, or a fault in a primary or secondary wire and/or cable).

Planning Purpose Locate – A locate request for a project in the planning phase to determine the location of existing facilities.

Relocate Request – A request to remark or refresh the marks of a dig site that has already been marked once by facility owners.

Crew-On Site Relocate – A relocate request for which a work crew is waiting for facilities to be marked. Facility owners, or their locators, will attempt to contact the crew within one hour to notify when the relocate will take place. Mistakenly known as a one-hour relocate. A crew on-site relocate ticket does not become valid until the job site has been remarked.

Twenty-Four Hour Relocate – A relocate request for a valid ticket, which should be remarked within 24 hours.

Three-Day Relocate – A relocate request for an invalid ticket.